Part 15 (1/2)
”To-morrow night. Mammy's done give her fish-fry and ice-cream festible, and she cleahed enough to pay the weddin' expenses. You-all's suah gwine to git an invite, Miss Lloyd.”
”It is sort of a benefit,” Betty explained to Miles Bradford, as they walked on. ”Instead of giving a concert or a recital, the colored people here give a fish-fry and festival whenever they are in need of money.
They used to have them just to raise funds for the church, but now it is quite popular for individuals to give them when there is a funeral or a wedding to be paid for. I am so glad you are going to stay over a few days. We can show you sights you've never dreamed of in the North.”
Eugenia, first to step into the hall, gave a cry of pleasure. The florist and his a.s.sistants had been there in their absence, and were just leaving. They had turned the entire house into a rose-garden. Hall, drawing-room, and library, and the dining-room beyond were filled with such lavishness that it seemed as if June herself had taken possession, with all her court. Stuart and Eugenia paused before the tall gate of smilax and American beauties.
”It is the Gate into Paradise, sweetheart,” he whispered, looking through its blossom-covered bars to the altar beyond, that had been built in the bay-window of the drawing-room, and covered with white roses.
”Yes,” answered Eugenia, smiling up at him. ”The legend is right. We must enter Paradise to find the diamond leaf. But I was right, too. It is my prince who will bring mine to me.”
CHAPTER XII.
THE WEDDING
Lunch was served on the porch, for the tables for the wedding supper were already spread in the dining-room, and Alec had locked the doors that nothing might disturb its perfect order.
”I think we are really going to be able to avoid that last wild rush which usually accompanies home weddings,” said Mrs. Sherman, as they sat leisurely talking over the dessert. ”Usually the bridesmaids' gloves are missing, or the bride's slippers have been packed into one of the trunks and sent on ahead to the depot. But this time I have tried to have everything so perfectly arranged that the wedding will come to pa.s.s as quietly and naturally as a flower opens. I want to have everything give the impression of having _bloomed_ into place.”
”Eliot and Mom Beck are certainly doing their part to make such an impression,” said Eugenia. ”Eliot has already counted over every article I am to wear, a dozen times, and they're all laid out in readiness, even to the 'something blue.'”
”Oh, that reminds me!” began Lloyd, then stopped abruptly. n.o.body noticed the exclamation, however, but Mary, and, with swift intuition, she guessed what the something blue had suggested to the maid of honor.
It was that bit of turquoise that caused the only scramble in the preparations, for Lloyd could not remember where she had put it.
”I was suah I dropped it into one of the boxes in my top bureau drawer,”
she said to herself on the way up-stairs. Then, with her finger on her lip, she stopped on the threshold of the sewing-room to consider. She remembered that when she gave up her room to the guests, all the boxes had been taken out of that drawer. Some of them had been put in the sewing-room closet, and some carried to a room at the end of the back hall, where trunks and hampers were stored.
Now, while Betty was down-stairs, helping with a few last details, Lloyd took advantage of her absence to search all the boxes in the closet and drawers of the sewing-room, but the missing turquoise was not in any of them.
”I know I ought to be taking a beauty sleep,” she thought, ”so I'll be all fresh and fine for the evening, but I must find it, for I promised Phil I'd wear it.”
In the general s.h.i.+fting of furniture to accommodate so many guests, several articles had found their way back among the trunks. Among them was an old rocking-chair. It was drawn up to the window now, and, as Lloyd pushed open the door, to her surprise she found Mary Ware half-hidden in its roomy depths. She was tilted back in it with a book in her hands.
Mary was as surprised as Lloyd. She had been so absorbed in the story that she did not hear the k.n.o.b turn, and as the hinges suddenly creaked, she started half out of her chair.
”Oh!” she exclaimed, settling back when she saw it was only Lloyd. ”You frightened me nearly out of my wits. I didn't know that anybody ever came in here.” Then she seemed to feel that some explanation of her presence was necessary.
”I came in here because our room is full of clothes, spread out ready to wear. They're all over the room,--mine on one side and Joyce's on the other. I was so afraid I'd forget and flop down on them, or misplace something, that I came in here to read awhile. It makes the afternoon go faster. Seems to me it never will be time to dress.”
Lloyd stood looking at the shelves around the room, then said: ”If time hangs so heavy on yoah hands, I believe I'll ask you to help me hunt for something I have lost. It's just a trifle, and maybe it is foolish for me to try to find it now, when everything is in such confusion, but it is something that I want especially.”
”I'd love to help hunt,” exclaimed Mary, putting down her book and holding out her arms to take the boxes which Lloyd was reaching down from the shelves. One by one she piled them on a packing-trunk behind her, and then climbed up beside them, sitting Turk fas.h.i.+on in their midst, and leaving the chair by the window for Lloyd.
”It's just a sc.r.a.p of unset turquoise,” explained Lloyd, as she unwrapped a small package, ”no larger than one of the beads on this fan-chain. I was in a big hurry when I dropped it into my drawer, and I didn't notice which box I put it in. So we'll have to take out all these ribbons and laces and handkerchiefs and sachet-bags.”
It was the first time during her visit that Mary had been entirely alone with her adored Princess, and to be with her now in this intimate way, smoothing her dainty ribbons, peeping into her private boxes, and handling her pretty belongings, gave her a pleasure that was indescribable.
”Shall I open this, too?” she asked, presently, picking up a package wrapped in an old gauze veil.